Dust spot on sensor

[tmd77]

I've got a dust spot on the sensor of my 450d, and it's still under warranty, so i don't want to go playing around inside and possibly affect my warranty.

Can anyone suggest a place i can go to on the GC that i can get it cleaned without voiding this warranty?

Cheers,
Trent

[jasnat]

You can send it to Canon (Expensive). Most camera shop will do it ($80-$100) or you can but a cleaning kit ($50). YouTube has videos on cleaning your sensor and different approaches on how to tackle different cleaning problems. Its not all that hard to do yourself but if you are worried you should send it.

At minimum you should get a blower like Rocket it.

[rwg717]

Hi Trent, dust spots on sensors are not a big deal really, I think the 450 has the capacity to record them and then they are automatically removed during processing the captures. There is a tutorial here on AP which shows how to remove dust from sensors, shouldn't be hard to find. Have a read-up of the manual that came with the camera, they give you advice there on how to avoid it in your photos or removing the dust yourself
Richard

[arthurking83]

The Copperhill kit (I think), is the safest and surest way to clean a sensor from baked on dust.
There are easier(ie. less time consuming) methods, some spots become very difficult or close to impossible and I think that with the wet copperhill method, you will get to within 99.9999% fully clean.

Note if you try hard to see them all, I don't think you can actualy get a 100% clean sensor, all you really want is to get the ones that you can see off.
(did some tests, and with extreme post processing you can still see dust particles that you can't visually see in normal images).
I wasted something like 10 or more of these pecpads to finally conclude that the dust in these extremely processed images is not going to come off.

Anyhow, I've posted a quick how to using the copperhill method.
I like the idea of a sticky pad method for those times when the copperhill(wet clean) method is not an option(travel, hard to do when mobile.. etc).

See HERE.

Many folks comment that at first the idea of delving into your camera may seem daunting, but even for a rough as guts clutz like myself, you really have to try very hard to do any damage to your in a simple dust clean like that link/

Note too: if it makes you feel better, you aren't actually cleaning the sensor itself!! the item you actually clean the dust spots of is called a filter. There are a series of filters that cover the actual sensor(AA, IR, UV, whatever else), so even if you do end up accidentally using a piece of sandpaper instead of a pecpad, the filters can be replaced more easily than the actual CMOS sensor can be.
But for the purpose of simplicity and ease of understanding, we'll use the term cleaning the sensor as it's basically what you're trying to accomplish

I sometimes forget to clean my cameras for a while and dust can get baked on, and I'm 101% sure that no other cleaning method would get those dust spots off the filter, and due to these baked on spots, I may end up using 5 or more pecpads(that is 10 swipes of the sensor) to get it fully clean.
Also worth pointing out, while using a canned air burst is harmless and easy, it's imperative that you never shake the can before spraying, if you can't remember to do this, leave that step out, and just do the wet clean job.

I think(for most folks), it'd be a 5-10min job.. to do maybe three swipes(two alternate strokes of the copperhill swiper thingy = 6 strokes in total) and a few small aperture exposures to confirm removal of the dust spots.

[Xenedis]

I've got a dust spot on the sensor of my 450d, and it's still under warranty, so i don't want to go playing around inside and possibly affect my warranty.

This condition is quite normal, and happens to any DSLR.

For the most part, it's not a problem, and most dust can be blown off with an air blower.

I recommend you buy a Giottos Rocket Air blower; they're around $17 or so, and very effective at blowing dust out of nooks and crannies. Just be sure not to allow the nozzle to make contact with the sensor (actually the anti-aliasing filter) inside the chamber.

Being a new camera, it's unlikely that the dust would have adhered to the AA filter, so a good blow from a Rocket Air should sort you out.

Some people recommend contact cleaning methods. I would not recommend this, not because it's not effective, but because you can damage expensive equipment, and that sort of treatment is best left to the experts operating under some sort of warranty or service-level arrangement.

[Xenedis]

You can send it to Canon (Expensive). Most camera shop will do it ($80-$100) or you can but a cleaning kit ($50).

Canon Australia charges $50 for a sensor clean.

However, given the OP is in Queensland, where Canon no longer has a service centre, he'd be up for the shipping and insurance costs to send it to Sydney, which will make the proposition more expensive.